In my experience, most power skating programs are actually
conditioning programs.While
conditioning is an important aspect of hockey training, it, by itself, does not
turn out a great skater.

Consider the training of a world class tennis player
or golfer.These athletes, trained
since childhood on the importance of fundamentals, never stop practicing them.Even minor slumps reinstate the “back to basics” training regime.

Hockey kids are put out on the ice with a stick and
puck and told, “Skate”.Not
told or taught how to skate, but just, “Skate (fast)”.The assumption is that by skating more and (moving the legs) a million
miles an hour they’ll skate faster.Wrong!They may learn to move their legs fast, but they may end up going nowhere
fast.

Over my 30 years in the sport I’ve watched millions
of hockey players - every age, every level - from novice to pro.I still cringe at the terribly small percentage of pros who are great
skaters.

From my earliest days of teaching (and even now), the
most repetitive request from parents of hockey students is to “skate them
hard”, “make them work”, “get them tired”.As if the purpose is to have children come off the ice with their tongues
hanging out, crawling to the locker room (so they’ll sleep well that night)?Is this a measure of learning?

Everyone
wants a to skate hard and to have a good workout.And I make sure that they always get that!But my power skating program is atechnique
training program.The
purpose is to teach players “howto go somewhere –fast”.The players who attend my program over the long term learn how to
properly execute every maneuver in the
entire hockey repertoire.They
become not just fast, but powerful, stable, explosive and efficiently
fast.

To become a great athlete there must be an
interaction between the brain and the body.Learning a sport requires a combination of mental function and muscle
function.Brain power combined with
muscle power.The ultimate goal is
to create muscle memory.But the
brain is boss.It teaches the body
what and how to do.So it must
understand what and why and how to do.

The brain cannot
learn when the body moves madly.It
needs to assimilate information.It
needs first to figure things out and then to transfer signals to the muscles so
that the muscles can perform correctly.

The
best way to go fast is to first slow down.

In my Power Skating System we teach each part of a
skating maneuver separately.We
then combine the parts to create the whole (completed) move.If you’ve read my book you know that there are dozens of hockey
maneuvers.Each maneuver has many
parts.For example there are at
least 40 parts to the move called, “The Forward Stride”.After teaching the parts, we now introduce one other elements, such as
the puck.Technique blows up - at
least for awhile.The brain must
assimilate the added element and transfer this information to the muscles. Now
we add another element, such as skating fast with the puck.Technique blows up again.Apply
this building block process to all the hockey maneuvers and you’ll understand
why it takes years to teach and years to master hockey skating.

The process:Learn
first to execute a maneuver correctly.Then
correctly and powerfully.Then
correctly, powerfully, quickly.Then
correctly, powerfully, quickly with the puck.Finally, correctly, powerfully, quickly with the puck, in game situations
and under lots of pressure.

There
is no short cut so don’t expect to become a great skater after one power
skating program.But stay positive
and stay committed to the long term.Within
8-10 years it will all “click in” and you will